Canadian TV I've Loved

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I -- American and predictably insular -- became fully aware of the huge pool of creative talent to the north when I became a fan of Due South and it's star, Paul Gross. My mother was the one who insisted that I watch. She fell for Mr. Gross's good looks and the faithful wolf/dog who kept the noble Mountie hero company. She was always a sucker for a  romantic tale with a handsome hero. Eventually I, her daughter, fell for the whole thing too.

At this juncture in my mother's life, the dog hero was more important than Paul Gross and his pretty face. Mom had always been a big fan of dogs and they reliably loved her back. When the four-footed actor who portrayed the fierce and faithful beast Diefenbaker, was changed three times in the course of the four year series, it upset her no end.

Newman, the dog actor in the pilot, was a genuine wolf/dog cross. The dogs in seasons 1-2 (Lincoln) and 3-4 (Draco) were both Siberian Huskies. Mom knew when they changed up dogs and made sure to tell me how different the dogs looked. She also said that she, for one, had not been fooled by the swap.

I loved to relax into Due South's (almost) Happily Ever After World. There was the cross-cultural slant in that the Mountie, just a guy-from-Nunavut-exiled to work with and for brash noisy Chicagoans. Due South told stories that were environmentally smart and politically edgy and they took stands on important issues. I probably sound like a conspiracy theorist, but perhaps their principled storytelling had an adverse effect on the way the show was marketed--or rather not marketed--by CBS, who kept changing the time slot until the audience gave up.

The limited series, Slings & Arrows*, which was first seen in U.S. on our PBS , was in my book at least, is a perfect example of what I think of as engaging T.V. The characters are, by turns, witty, erudite, cynical, honorable, ignoble, passionate, and even occasionally ecstatic. The mood from theater low to theater high kept shifting, much like the Shakespearean plays the cast is shown struggling to get on stage.

Anyone who has ever been in a theater group of any size knows how the personalities clash in such an ego-packed artistic environment. Interpersonal dramas - contemporary culture wars too, came in from the outside world - and charged each episode. Sometimes the show was just Punch & Judy hilarious. The opener, set in a rundown theater's grotty loo, will either turn you off or (literally) suck you in.

Orphan Black, a modern day Toronto set S/F series, became my next t.v. obsession.  In the first episode, Sarah, the troubled, larcenous heroine discovers that she has a twin, but the truth which she begins to unravel proves to be even stranger than that. Sarah eventually discovers twelve (?) lookalikes, who are all the result of illegal human cloning. As the story proceeds, a sinister corporate plot with nightmarish global implications gradually comes to light.

Nurture has overcome Nature in each of these clones, so that although they are all tough cookies, like our heroine Sarah, each one is also different in a host of ways--there is a yuppie, a scientist, a homicidal maniac, a computer hacker, a privileged criminal mastermind, a party girl, etc. Tatiana Maslany is a sensation in each and every role, and was subsequently nominated for both Golden Globes and Sag Awards. She won a Prime Time Emmy award, and was the first Canadian actor in a major dramatic category in a Canadian series to do so. I was happy to hear it, because Maslany had certainly earned recognition after this marathon feat of multiple characterization.

Canadian's do great comedy, too. More recently than the all time dramatic favs above, I've enjoyed the heart-warming Kim's Convenience Store, the quirky, philosophical The Sensitive Skin, and the black humor of Schitt's Creek. 

Since publishing Fly Away Snow Goose with John Wisdomkeeper, I've been writing blogs for BWL Canadian Historical Brides and learning a whole lot about Canada, America's big neighbor to the north, a country which has its own history, its own art, and its own special national character. I have also gained a healthy appreciation for the talent of my Canadian fellow writers at BWL, as we work together to tell a series of historical stories about each province. 



~Juliet Waldron 

http://www.julietwaldron.com


* "Whether this nobler  in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them." From the To Be or Not To Be soliloquy in Hamlet.

Jumping Mouse

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This is an attempt at  retelling of a "plains Indian" story I read a long time ago in a powerful book called The Seven Arrows by Hyemeyohsts Storm. These are tales of tribes called by their white man names Cheyenne, Crow and Sioux. Their actual names, according to this author, were Painted Arrow, the Little Black Eagle, and the Brother People, names with true poetry and power. I hope to honor my fellow author, John Wisdomkeeper, who has spent his life reclaiming his heritage, by offering a First Nations' tale for this month's blog. We will walk through the four directions and then upward toward the Sacred Mountain.

Little mouse was busy, as are all of his kind, searching, searching, gathering seeds, eating seeds, but today there was a new sound, a roaring, roaring in his ears.
"Do you hear a noise, my brother?" He asked another mouse who was nearby, also busy with his work.
"No, no, I hear no noise. Let me be now. I am busy with my work."
But the first mouse still heard the noise and it puzzled him. He asked the same question of the next mouse he encountered, as they scrambled through the grasses, but the answer here was rude: "Have you lost your wits? I hear no noise. Go away; I am too busy now."
But the roaring did not stop. Then the mouse heard a voice.
"Little Brother, I hear the noise. It is the sound of a river."
Little mouse looked up and saw a Raccoon.
"Would you like me to show you?"
The mouse thought when I find out it will be a help to all the others, perhaps with our examining and collecting, the work the Great Spirit has set for us. So he went with the Raccoon and soon he saw the river.
The river was astonishing. It was large; it roared; it cried; it sang. The mouse was dumbstruck.
"It is a Great Thing," said Raccoon. "Let me take you, small seeker, to meet a friend who lives here. I too need to go about my business here at the river."
They walked along the edge until they found a quiet backwater they found some lily pads. Upon one of these sat a frog.
"This is my friend," said Raccoon. "He was seeking to know about the river."
Raccoon left the mouse and went about his business of of finding food and washing it in the river.  The mouse had never met a Frog before--so green and very strange, half in the water and half out of it.
He as filled with wonder when the Frog spoke and said, "I have the gift of living above and below water, and my name is Water Keeper. Would you like a Medicine gift from me?"
"Oh! A Medicine gift for me? Yes!"
"Crouch down and jump up as high as you can, look up as you jump, and you will see something," said the frog.
Little mouse did as he was told and as he jumped, he suddenly caught sight of a prairie and beyond, a most beautiful mountain. When he fell to earth, though, he slipped on the mud and fell into the river. Angry and scared, he pulled himself out, shaking off the water.
"Never mind being wet," said the Frog. "Did you see the Great Medicine?"
The mouse had to admit that the sight was the most wonderful thing he'd ever seen.
"Now you have a new name," said the Frog. "Jumping Mouse."
The mouse returned to his people, but no one cared about what he had seen. They were all too busy. Besides, he was all wet and maybe, they thought, crazy. Still, Jumping Mouse continued to think of the wonder of the great world that he had seen.
Now the prairie called to him, but because it was open, it was a dangerous place for a mouse to go. Still one day, he decided he would run out upon it and try to reach the sacred mountain. So, although he was terrified, he ran and he ran, fearing any moment that an eagle or other bird of prey would find him and eat him. At last he found a patch of sage and grasses and went in to hide. There was another mouse there and he asked Jumping Mouse to stay with him there, for there was plenty to eat and much to investigate, there under the sage. "Can you see the Sacred Mountain and the River from here?" 
"No, I cannot see them, but I know they are there."
This was not good enough for Jumping Mouse. The desire to stand upon the sacred mountain filled his mind, and he knew he'd have to go on, despite his terror of the eagles. So, after resting and eating, he dared to cross the prairie again, running this time till his heart was near to bursting, always fearing the shadow which could so fatally fall upon him. 
Finally, he found another patch of grass and brush and ran in, glad to be alive and puffing and panting. When his own breathing quieted, he heard the sound of another's breath coming and going, only very hard and loud and pained. He crept toward the sound and saw an enormous Being, so huge, so very woolly, lying in the brush.
"I am Buffalo," said the Great Being, when he saw the mouse staring in wonder at him. "But I am dying."
"I am trying to reach the Sacred Mountain and wondered if you could help me get there, but now I see you cannot. I am very sorry you must die. You seem far too great a Being for such an ordinary fate."
"I can only be cured by the eye of a mouse."
Jumping mouse was very frightened at that. He ran away into a mound of grass to hide and think. He thought for a long time and finally decided that he had two eyes and that he could spare one. So he returned to the Buffalo and said, "Brother Buffalo, you may have one of my eyes."
And it was gone! The mouse felt even more frightened now, with only one eye to see the world through, and so many eagles hunting everywhere.
After a time, Brother Buffalo stood up and said "Now I am well, Little Brother. I give you my thanks and the thanks of The People to whom I will be a gift because of what you have given. I will soon be a give-away Gift to the People as Creator intended. Let me take you to the foot of the Sacred Mountain. Walk beneath my belly and do not fear I will step on you, for I walk the Sun Dance Path."
So Jumping Mouse ran along beneath the belly of the Buffalo safe from eagles until they reached the slopes of the Sacred Mountain. Mouse looked up and up, seeing the rocky way ahead, but wanting to climb higher. The Buffalo spoke and said, "I can go no higher up these rocks, for now I must return to The People to become a Gift to them. You stay here, Little Brother, safe in these rocks, and another Guide will come."
The mouse was still very frightened when the Buffalo left, for above him, even with one eye, he could see the eagles circling. 
After a time, a wolf came down the slope, but he was walking in circles. When Jumping Mouse spoke to him, he only said, "Wolf- Wolf -Wolf." Wolf moved slowly and stumbled as he went, like a man who had drunk too much of the stinging water and lost his mind.
In Jumping Mouse's mind a voice, said, "You must give your other eye to the Wolf, little Brother if you wish to reach the top of the sacred mountain."
Jumping Mouse shed tears. How would he see the Sacred Mountain he had so longed for when he was blind? The smells, the sounds of wind and birds and trees, would be all that was left for him. Nevertheless, he would at last reach the top of the Sacred Mountain! And so he gave up his remaining eye.
"Thank you, dear Little Brother," said the Wolf. "Now I have my wits again, and I will take you to the top of the mountain." Very gently and carefully, the Wolf led Jumping Mouse along, up and up, until they reached the side of a lake. Jumping Mouse could no longer see, but he could smell the clean fresh water, and he and the Wolf drank deep and refreshed themselves.
"Now I must leave you here," said Brother Wolf, "for there are others I must guide to this place."
Jumping Mouse understood that the Wolf followed his duty, but he was terribly afraid, for he could tell by how the wind blew that this place was without cover. He felt sure that the eagles would find him here. 
He sat there, by the lake, feeling the sun on his back, until a shadow passed over him. He crouched down low and waited for the claws of the eagle. 

Jumping Mouse awoke. His vision was back, both eyes, but very blurry. "I can see! I can see!" he cried. All the colors were bright, so bright and beautiful that he could almost hear them. He heard a voice, saying, "Hello, my Brother. Do you want some Medicine?" 
"Some Medicine for me? Yes! Yes!" Jumping Mouse replied.
"Then crouch down as low as you can and jump as high you can."
Jumping Mouse did so, crouching low and then jumping with all his might and main, with the pure joy of being alive. This time, the wind caught him and blew him upward, Higher and Higher. 
"Do not be afraid," said the Voice. "Hang onto the wind and trust."
Jumping Mouse did. He was going higher and higher, wind blowing around him, sun shining. His eyesight had cleared and now he saw the Sacred Mountain with the beautiful clear lake below him and the wide prairie beyond. There, on a lily pad in the Medicine lake, he saw his old friend, the Frog, Water Keeper.
"You have a new name now," shouted the Frog. "You are Eagle."




~~Juliet Waldron

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Red & White, at War in the World, and in her Blood.

about what he had seen.

First Nations Pipe Ceremony over Okanagan Lake

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Union of the Sacred Pipes ~

Reposted to honor of fellow author John Wisdomkeeper, who could use all of your thoughts and prayers during his time in hospital. 

In the hills around Okanagan Lake Valley is a place called Bear Creek.  As I hiked through these rocks, the echo of fast rushing water vibrated like thousands of flutes playing to the rushing waterfalls that all flowed into one giant lake.  One day I mediated on a large rock in the middle of the Creek - the only access being to jump a log jutting into the water.  Opening my eyes to father sky, I watched crows chase a golden eagle.  The eagle flowed upward in ever expanding circles, and the crows followed, but the eagle flew higher and higher.  A fine mist rose from the rocks and powerful medicine herbs waved in the gentle breezes.  The sweet smell of Lavender and the pungent tang of pine filled the air.  When I stopped and listened closely I heard the footsteps of the ancestors passing through the canyon - stepping from stone to stone - as they followed the game trails.
 

The People and The Spirits are not gone. Clothes have changed, 

but the soul of both is constant.

One day a white brother came to visit from Texas - a police officer - who loved the culture as I do, and wanted to share the pipe with some of the Native brothers.  We climbed a trail through a ravine of rocks to an old sacred clearing.  At the entrance to the clearing--a circle of rocks covered by moss and surrounded by juniper and Saskatoon bushes--we stopped and I offered tobacco, asking the ancestors to welcome our visitor.  The winds stopped, and a peace settled over the clearing, inviting our entrance.  We sat together, on the ground, waiting for some brothers who were pipe carriers to join us.

 One by one each brother showed up from his journey.  One brother traveled from a rain dance ceremony; another brother came from the sweet grass fields in Montana; a third brother came late, joking that as he had traveled the shortest distance he came on Indian time.  My friend from Texas offered a medicine bundle from his home region and asked for prayers for his family.  He explained that he had spent a lot of time studying and learning the culture of the Cheyenne, the Apache, the Arapaho and the Hopi nations, and to him it was a great honor to come to this sacred ground where lay the bones of ancestors who had traveled here before, and join with this group of pipe carriers for other Native nations.

Together we sat down in a circle and opened our medicine bundles.  Father sky peered over our circle like a bright blue blanket streaked with orange and fringed with white clouds. Wisps of white floated around us as the spirits of many ancestors, gathered around our group as we prepared to share the sacred pipes.

We began by filling our smudge bowls with sage and sweet grass, which we lit and fanned with eagle feathers until the smoke drifted towards Father Sky.  Each of us reached into the smoke and brushed our arms and legs and heads with smoke to cleanse the hardships of our travels and prepare ourselves for the ceremony.  The pipe carrier facing the North started the traditional song of offering to the ancestors, and one by one we joined into the song, lifting our voices to invite the ancestors to travel across the spiritual realm and join us in our ceremony.  As one, we bowed our heads in the circle, sharing prayers for our loved ones and the great nations, asking for blessings for all mother earth’s living and spiritual beings.  We offered prayers for the animal kingdom, the plant world and the mineral world.  The pipe carriers lifted their pipes, pointing the stems to each of the four sacred directions requesting blessing for the circle, and then the pipes were lit. As we passed the pipes, we shared the stories and teachings of our ancestors, and laughed together at the antics of trickster and the pranks he had played on our friends and elders over the years.

When we fell silent, each of us settled into the peace and harmony that had fallen over the sacred circle.  In the darkness the voices of a thousand crickets hummed in harmony, and beyond our circle the coyotes howled to the night spirits.  Grandmother moon rose into the sky and shone her light over our circle.

When the pipes were out, we packed our medicine bundles.  Standing, we joined hands, offered prayers for a safe journey for the travelers, and returned to each a hug of friendship and a common wish for a future reunion of the pipes.

John & Friend

John Wisdomkeeper

Sus' naqua ootsin'

Read John's personal story: 
Along the Red Road

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THANKSGIVING THOUGHTS

Fly Away Snow Goose by Juliet Waldron & John Wisdomkeeper:

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Thanksgiving can be tough sometimes, or it can be an utter blast. Some of the most memorable Thanksgivings for me came during the time we were married students, visiting well-heeled relatives of my husband in Gloucester, MA. We became totally irresponsible as soon as we were under the roof of his Aunt and Uncle, all acting like kids again, playing hide and seek in their 30 room Victorian with cousins. Downstairs an epic dinner was being made, and we were off Scot-free if we occasionally passed some time helping in the kitchen, washed/dried dishes, peeled potatoes, sliced apples for pie, or mushrooms and celery for stuffing—whatever weary hand work our elders were sick of. Those times with friends and family were warm, shiny, and are now (in my mind) generally surrounded by a nostalgic golden haze. 

I have come to think of Turkey Day as a kind of late harvest get-together after the crops are mostly in. (Our local exception is the soybeans—now being cut and threshed by giant machinery, producing great clouds of dust, rumbling around the fields.  

When I remember elementary school, I think of an endless series of hand turkeys posted on the cement block walls, of pageants in the auditorium, where they taught us about the first Thanksgiving of the saintly Pilgrims  and their supposed kumbaya moment with the Injuns who had kindly shown them how to survive on these wild shores.

Sadly, all the history I learned later, as I discovered the real scoop on what happened after my ancestors migrated to the “new” world, is some pretty sorry stuff. The acts--some beyond "terrible," that took place during this collision of cultures has taught me plenty of uncomfortable lessons. I’m still learning because privilege can't see itself. Old false narratives require a lot of undoing. 

While writing Fly Away Snow Goose, I learned about the Great Tlicho leader Monfwi. He said that it has become imperative that we learn to “see in two ways” in order for humanity to progress into the future. We must begin to wisely use all the knowledge and skills the people of every nation can bring to the table. The First Nation’s "way" is the wisdom of hunter-gatherers, a way of living with one another and with the earth that we Europeans have been traditionally taught to scorn. 

It seems more than time to deliver on our responsibilities to one another—and to treat the unique biosphere upon which we are ever so privileged to live with respect.

I’ll end with a link to the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Thanksgiving Address to the Natural World, a beautiful and meaningful spiritual thank-you to Mother Nature. I hope you enjoy it.

   https://danceforallpeople.com/haudenosaunee-thanksgiving-address/

Happy Thanksgiving .

~~Juliet Waldron

~~~

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I'd like to thank...

I'd like to thank Grandpa Albert Liddle, a Literature Professor at Antioch College who made Shakespeare and Chaucer live for me. He had issues of The New Yorker back to that magazine's inception and he encouraged me to read the great writing inside and to never be afraid to ask questions of my teachers. 

My Mom who read constantly and haunted the local library, and who wrote for the local newspaper and for letting me read whatever I wanted. 

My Dad who read his childhood books aloud to me, gritty true stories like Tales of an Indian Boyhood, and realistic historical adventures like Claws of the Thunderbird.

4th Grade teacher, Mrs. Keyho, who put on a play that I'd written in the school auditorium where it was viewed by the other 4th grade classes--even if it was a shameless piece of Bambi fanfic.

 Childhood friends from school, Elsa and Gay, and from summer camp, Christine and Liz, who got excited about the historical characters over whom I so endlessly obsessed and who shared my love for history, theater and costumes.

Historical novelists like Margaret Irwin and Margaret Campbell Barnes who shaped my initial ideas about what kind of stories I wanted to tell.  And Jane Austen for being the perfect fore-mother for authors who desperately want to reproduce period voice.

Nolan Miller, Creative Writing Professor at Antioch, who, unimpressed with my freshman efforts, told me to "go out and get some life experience." 

Chris, my husband, who thought we could get by even if I gave up office 9-5 and became a full time writer.

RWA Critique star, Kay Cochran, a brilliant writer and English teacher who used her red pencil and sharp eye on my very earliest stuff.

Kathy Fisher-Brown, fellow BWL author and fellow Revolutionary War buff, for her editing skills, as well as her all-around writer-to-writer companionship. May we tour many, many more battlefields and historic houses together!   

I'm thankful for Libraries, both public and university--in every place I've lived--and now for being able to conduct research on the Internet. You can find out almost anything these days, if you'll just keep your critical facilities engaged and go on indefatigably drilling down.


Jude Pittman, for her initiative, energy, and integrity, and for Books We Love's continuing faith in my work.  She and her husband, my writing partner, John Wisdomkeeper, have made our joint work on Fly Away Snow Goose, a valued experience which has grown me in many many ways. 

 And last but not least, I'd like to thank the voices in my head, those imaginary friends who've been my companions through good times and bad--some of them for more than sixty years. Thanks for sharing your stories! 

http://amzn.to/1YQziX0  A Master Passion   ISBN: 1771456744

~~Juliet Waldron

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Fly Away Snow Goose, Canadian Historical Brides series (Book ) by Juliet Waldron

Bio: I was a lonely only child who found companionship in books, particularly in reading history. People from the past hung out with me and several of these old friends have been the inspiration for my writing. Some of these "ghosts" have been in my life for 60+ years now. Mozart's Wife, Roan Rose and A Master Passion are stories I'd imagined (and re-imagined) over the course of many long years.

Blurb: They live in a vanishing Eden, their spirits close to the land and the animals upon which they rely. Captured by another tribe--kwet'ı̨ı̨̀ (Stone House People/Whites)--two teens are placed in a residential school patently designed to "kill the Indian inside," by taking away their language and belittling their culture. Yaotl and Sascho arrive as sweetearts; in order to survive as whole beings, they absolutely must escape.    



Story Arc: Fly Away Snow Goose

Storytelling, at least to this writer, is a kind of trance journey on which I hope to take my reader. The way may wander through beauty or ugliness--much like life.

My characters were born into a tribe for whom long on foot journeys were a way of life. The early 1950's in the subarctic, where Fly Away Snow Goose begins, is a land where many Tlicho still live more or less as their ancestors have for 10,000 years, following the seasonal migration of caribou. 

This is a captivity-and-escape story--the mirror image of the ones where white children are carried off by "Indians." Here, 1st Nation's children are carried into European captivity when they are placed--as the law of the land required--in a residential school. After a daring escape, their own courage, love, endurance and their own wild knowledge will have to take them home.

These travelers create an ad hoc family. Their quest is not after new things, but after the old, as they seek to reconnect with their tribe. They carry with them not only new knowledge but a lot of pain after their encounter with the "stone house people."  In the spring, like the Snow Geese, they must go North.


~~Juliet Waldron

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Juliet Waldron on Plotting

When I saw the April topic of plotting and how we go about it for this month’s Canadian Brides blog, I smiled to myself—or maybe it was more of a grimace. This is because I started my journey as a writer by creating historical novels which were biographical fictions. That is, they were novels based on real people and events. That particular discipline forced me to do in depth research and then hang the characters, like wet laundry, on whatever plotline I’d assembled from all the collected information. It required keeping timelines and matching dates of journeys, letters, diary entries, births, conceptions, (even legislation and campaigns, both political and military in the case of A Master Passion) to the locales where my characters were situated and what they were (or might) have been doing.

The difficulty with a story like Fly Away, Snow Goose is that I have to not only build characters, but also devise a believable plot, as history has not directly provided one. In this case, it has to be something that might have happened in the real world of the period, which is Northwest Territories, Canada, in the early 1950’s. So first thing, the digging for sources began. I started by collecting several ethnographic studies and have been glad that I approached the story in this manner. That allowed me to place the stories of residential school survivors, my next study, in the proper context.

I was a child myself during the early 50’s, but how very different my material world was from those of these 1st Nation’s characters!  The Tlicho people of 60+ years ago were practically born on the move. For them, “home” was a huge territory through which they seasonally traveled, on the footsteps of the migratory animals they fed upon.  Walking, as a lifeway, was central not only in their day-to-day world, but to their legends—the Power named “Walks Far” or “Always Walking,” is a central figure of their genesis stories.

When John Wisdomkeeper suggested tackling the issue of the residential schools, we both knew that this would be a difficult telling, a story of abduction, captivity, abuse, escape, and survival. The experience of the school, so alien, so full of shame and pain, will haunt them. Their journey will be a hard, lonely, dangerous walk--an ordeal, a cleansing, a reconnection to who and what they really are--as they search for food, shelter, along the trails that will lead them back to the autumn campground.

Katherine Pym, the author preceding me, has told of her admirable ability to organize research and shared many excellent methods to keep the myriad details she’s uncovered close to hand.  By contrast, I’m utterly disorganized. There’s a pile of notes – written—yes!—on paper. There are scrawls in notebooks and on random pieces of paper beside my keyboard. Post-it stuffed books line the wall behind me, where they either trip me up or fall over whenever I push my chair back and stiffly totter off to the kitchen in search of another cup of tea.

Like a horse taking a “beauty-bath” in the dust, I roll about in the information I’ve collected until it sticks. Maybe a cow would make a better metaphor for my writing style.  I eat, ruminate, and then hope that when my fingers hit those keys, something honest—instead of s**t—appears on the page.